Xena Reviews: Season 3, Episode 11

Maternal Instincts – Director: Mark Beesley/Writer: Chris Manheim

This one starts with Xena and Gabi arriving at the Centaur village to celebrate a new treaty reuniting the Centaur nation. They soon run into Kaleipus and Solan (who still doesn’t know Xena is his mother) and Xena assures Kaleipus she’s not there to claim Solan. Elsewhere, we see Hope (now a girl of about ten or so) bringing Callisto back from the lava stream she fell into in A Necessary Evil.

Ephiny and Xenon are at the Centaur village (so Xenon can get to know his father’s people) and Ephiny soon realizes something’s bothering Gabi. Outside the village, Callisto burns some Centaur totems and kills a few guards. When Xena sees the damage, she has a pretty good idea who caused it. Gabi tells Ephiny she had a kid in Britannia who later died, but leaves out the part about Dahok being her father and about sparing Hope’s life. Gabi recognizes a wooden wolf toy that Xenon has as Sinticles’ work and mentions the wooden lamb she gave Hope (which I guess is a way of reminding the audience about it, because we’re going to see that lamb again very soon). Hope comes in (using the name Phayla) and says she has a message for Xena from the “monster lady” (Callisto). Xena realizes Callisto knows about Solan, so she decides to hide him in the Ixion Caverns. Hope tells Callisto where Solan is hiding and they plan to kill him, to crush Xena’s soul.

Solan doesn’t want to hide in the Caverns, but Xena talks him into it. When Gabi sees “Phayla” carrying the wooden lamb, she realizes she’s actually Hope, but doesn’t tell anyone. Xena takes a cloaked figure through the woods and Callisto shows up to kill Solan, but it turns out to be Gabi under the cloak. Callisto isn’t too bothered and Xena figures she might be working with someone else, so Solan could still be in danger. Hope goes to the Caverns to kill Solan, but runs into Kaleipus and has to kill him instead, weakening her powers. Xena and Gabi find Kaleipus, but he dies before he can tell them who killed him.

With Kaleipus dead, Solan asks if he can come with Xena and Gabi when they leave and Xena agrees (and it seems like she’s planning on telling him the truth once they’re on the road). Hope tells Callisto they should go after the children if they really want to cause the most pain. Hope tells Gabi some more lies about how scared she is of Callisto and Gabi admits she’s Hope’s mother (which Hope knew all along) and says she never stopped loving her. It’s obvious Gabi wants to believe Hope, so she sends her to the safest place she can think of, Kaleipus’s hut; unfortunately, that’s also where Solan is hiding. Gabi tells Xena about Callisto’s plans to target the children and Xena wonders if “Phayla” might be a plant that Callisto’s using to spread disinformation. Gabi lets it slip that Phayla is really Hope and Xena freaks. Xena figures Hope can be killed with poison since she’s not fully mature yet, but Gabi won’t let Xena kill her daughter. When she mentions hiding her from Callisto, Xena runs to check on Solan and finds him dead. When Gabi comes in and sees Xena holding Solan’s body, she realizes how badly she’s fucked up.

Xena is numb with pain from losing Solan and doesn’t even care about stopping Callisto until Xenon comes in and she realizes she can’t let any more kids die. Gabi pours some poison into her wineskin, but when Hope tells her she found Solan already dead, Gabi desperately wants to believe her. But Hope mentions Solan’s name (which she has no way of knowing) and Gabi knows she’s lying, so Gabi tells Hope they have to leave. Xena fights Callisto, but knows she can’t really hurt her since Callisto’s a god now (although there’s a cool scene where Callisto gets skewered with numerous arrows). Xena lures her into the Caverns and collapses them; in the Xena mythology, burying a god under earth or stone negates their powers. Xena barely gets out before the Caverns collapse, but Callisto is buried under the rock. Out in the woods, Gabi has given Hope the poison and briefly considers drinking it herself, but doesn’t. At the funeral rites, Gabi admits she was wrong and tries to apologize, but Xena is so full of grief and anger she can barely look at Gabi. Even Gabi telling Xena she loves her doesn’t help and they end up walking away from each other.

This episode is really good and definitely deserves its reputation as a classic; it’s #40 on my all-time list and could maybe be higher, except it’s almost too intense at times. For someone like me, who loves Xena and Gabi as a couple, seeing them lie to each other and dealing with the consequences is hard to take (and it gets even worse next episode before they finally work things out). Gabi’s lie about killing Hope has come back to haunt her in the worst way, by taking Xena’s son away from her. Judging by the way Xena was talking when she agreed to let Solan come with them, she was probably going to tell him she was his mother … but now she’ll never get that chance.

Hope and Callisto make an interesting team here. Hope wants to prepare the world for Dahok’s rule, but using her powers leaves her weak so she needs Callisto to protect her. On the other hand, Callisto just wants to cause Xena the maximum amount of pain by taking away her son, just like Xena took Callisto’s family. But after Solan’s death, Callisto admits she didn’t get any pleasure out of it and tells Xena she’s already won because Callisto can no longer get joy from anything … not even Xena’s pain. Callisto has become so devoid of feeling that nothing can give her joy and she begins to crave oblivion (a theme we’ll see more of in future episodes). We’ll see more of Hope too, who knew exactly how to manipulate Gabi’s feelings of guilt over giving her up. Gabi will never really lose that guilt, but she’ll never fall for Hope’s bullshit again either.

The real impact of this episode is what it does to Xena and Gabi’s relationship. I think they were definitely in love with each other at this point (and maybe could’ve saved some grief if they’d admitted that), but they let lies and mistrust pull them apart; not just Gabi lying about Hope, but Xena’s lie about killing Ming Tien. When they’re fighting in the Caverns, Callisto wonders if Xena’s going to trap them both there, but Xena says she’d rather live with her pain. That’s the same choice Gabi makes when she contemplates drinking the poison; ultimately, she chooses to live with the pain and guilt of what she’s done instead of taking the easy way out. The way the episode aired, we see Xena walking up and looking at Gabi after Gabi decides not to drink the poison, but apparently she was originally supposed to arrive sooner and just stand there watching as Gabi almost killed herself. Chris Manheim said Xena would’ve stopped Gabi at the last second (she was supposed to have her hand on her chakram as she watched), but the way it got cut it looks like Xena would’ve arrived too late to stop Gabi if she’d actually drank the poison.

Noticeable Things:

• Kaleipus is played by a different actor than in his first appearance in Orphan of War.
• Speaking of Orphan of War, Xena says it’s been 1 year, 2 months, and 12 days since she last saw Solan. (And Gabi tells Ephiny it’s been 2 months since they left Britannia.)
• There are two funeral pyres at the end of the episode, which I always assumed were for Solan and Kaleipus. But in the Hercules episode Armageddon Now, it shows the ashes from one of the pyres blowing away and coalescing back into Hope. I find it hard to believe Xena would allow Hope to be burnt right next to Solan; it would make more sense if Gabi burnt Hope’s body herself out in the woods and the ashes reformed from that fire.

Favourite Quotes:

• “As Xena goes, so goes the world.” Hope suggesting that Xena’s destiny might have an impact on the world at large, which is why she wants to cause Xena as much despair as possible.
• “Flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone, blood of your blood … can’t wait to see all that.” Callisto telling Xena how much she’s looking forward to meeting Solan.
• “She is not a child! She is a body, a vessel, an instrument for evil, that is all!” Xena letting Gabi know exactly how she feels about Hope.
• “You’re wrong, Callisto. You let your pain kill you years ago. I’m gonna live with mine.” Xena choosing to deal with her grief instead of just ending it.